Problems

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There is a secret gathering of a group of \(n\) aliens in a very dark room. You cannot see anyone in the room, but you hear the following questions.

  1. “Is at least one of us a Goop?"

  2. “Is the number of Goops amongst us an even number?"

  3. “Is the number of Goops amongst us a multiple of 3?"

  4. \(\dots\)

  5. “Is the number of Goops amongst us a multiple of \(n\)?"

What are all the possible values of \(n\) such that this gathering can happen? Note that each of the \(n\) aliens have asked exactly one question.

You meet a group of \(n\) aliens. The first alien asks “is at least one of us a Goop?", the second alien asks “are at least two of us Goops?", the third asks “are at least three of us Goops?" and so on until the final one says “are at least \(n\) of us Goops?".

How many Goops are there?

Suppose you only knew the formula of a triangle for right-angled triangles. That is, if a base with length \(b\) and a height \(h\) of a triangle meet at a right angle, you know that the area of the triangle is \(\frac{1}{2}bh\). Can you prove the usual area formula for a general triangle?

The pigeonhole principle is often called “Dirichlet’s box principle". Dirichlet made good use of this tool to show a fundamental result in Diophantine approximation, now commonly known as the Dirichlet Approximation Theorem. You will now prove it yourself!

Suppose \(\alpha\) is any irrational real number and \(N\geq 1\) is any positive integer. Show that there is an integer \(1\leq q\leq N\) and an integer \(p\) such that \[\left| q \alpha - p \right| < \frac{1}{N}.\]

Find the mistake in the sequence of equalities: \(-1=(-1)^{\frac{2}{2}}=((-1)^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}=1^{\frac{1}{2}}=1\).

A circle with center \(A\) is inscribed into a square \(CDFE\). A line \(GH\) intersects the sides \(CD\) and \(CE\) of the square and is tangent to the circle at the point \(I\). Find the perimeter of the triangle \(CHG\) (the sum of lengths of all the sides) if the side of the square is \(10\)cm.

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The triangle visible in the picture is equilateral. The hexagon inside is a regular hexagon. If the area of the whole big triangle is \(18\), find the area of the small blue triangle.

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In a pentagon \(ABCDE\), diagonal \(AD\) is parallel to the side \(BC\) and the diagonal \(CE\) is parallel to the side \(AB\). Show that the areas of the triangles \(\triangle ABE\) and \(\triangle BCD\) are the same.

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Which triangle has the largest area? The dots form a regular grid.

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What is the ratio between the red and blue area? All shapes are semicircles.

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